


does a heartbeat glitch or skip?

by Anonymous



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: A little blurb, Android AU, M/M, robot seonghwa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:35:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22597156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: “Would you like to go on… a walk?” the velvety voice asks, unsurely.For a moment, Hongjoong is thrown back into his childhood home, waking up on a lazy Sunday morning to the sound of an overexcited Mars telling him to hurry up and go on an early morning hike with him, so that they can get a refreshing start to their day by watching the sun come up before they go eat waffles for breakfast.Hongjoong had hated, with a fiery passion, the way the cold air would seep through his layers and layers of clothing, but he had tolerated it because the way Mars would smile at him the whole time was more than warm enough to compensate.(seonghwa, in every aspect except the one hongjoong needs themost, is an exact duplicate of the man hongjoong can never get back no matter how many times he's wished for it with teary eyes.)
Relationships: Kim Hongjoong/Park Seonghwa
Comments: 14
Kudos: 164
Collections: Anonymous





	does a heartbeat glitch or skip?

“Hongjoong~” A weight settles on top of Hongjoong’s comforter, lightly, as if making sure not to disturb Hongjoong too much. “Wake up.” 

Hongjoong blames his confusion on how late he’d gone to bed last night, stuck in between a headache that had made him want to knock out face first into his pillow and an overactive mind that had made the back of his eyes itch uncomfortably even as his eyelids kept drifting shut. That’s why he doesn’t really question the fact that someone is personally waking him up when he’s woken up on his own for years, and it’s also why he forgets to suppress the childishness that sometimes reveals itself if he’s not careful. 

“No,” Hongjoong whines, curling deeper into his blankets. “Too early.” 

“Would you like to go on… a walk?” the velvety voice asks, unsurely. 

For a moment, Hongjoong is thrown back into his childhood home, waking up on a lazy Sunday morning to the sound of an overexcited Mars telling him to hurry up and go on an early morning hike with him, so that they can get a refreshing start to their day by watching the sun come up before they go eat waffles for breakfast. 

Hongjoong had hated, with a fiery passion, the way the cold air would seep through his layers and layers of clothing, but he had tolerated it because the way Mars would smile at him the whole time was more than warm enough to compensate. 

Only Hongjoong isn’t seventeen anymore, with small, silly concerns like teenage friendships and grades and how many waffles he’s going to be able to scarf down for post-hike breakfasts. He’s twenty-six now, jaded and worn thin by the losses he’s accumulated over the years, and while he lives in a picture perfect house in the wealthier part of town, it’s too big and empty for a pair of brothers like him and Jongho to fully occupy, and the familiar sensation of _absence,_ a feeling akin to having his whole body plunged into ice, sinks deep into his bones when he realizes the mistake he’s made in believing that Mars is still here. 

Hongjoong opens his eyes, and feels a jolt run through his spine when he makes eye contact with the man sitting on his bed. 

Seonghwa is both nothing and everything like Mars, when Hongjoong really looks at him. He’s got the same soft eyes, the same distinct, sharp nose, the same rosy lips that never pull too wide in case Mars ruins his image. Seonghwa smiles the same way Mars used to, like he’s not sure whether he’s in pain or amused, and the only reason Hongjoong can tell the difference between this stranger and his dead best friend is because Seonghwa’s skin looks like glass and his features are completely symmetrical, an impossible feat for even the most beautifully crafted of human beings. 

If Seonghwa had anyone else’s face, Hongjoong would consider touching his cheek to check how smooth his skin is, constructed of expensive resin that’s peach-tinted to give Seonghwa a lively flush of color. 

But Seonghwa, in every aspect except the one Hongjoong needs the most, is an exact duplicate of the man Hongjoong can never get back no matter how many times he’s wished for it with teary eyes, and just _looking_ at Seonghwa makes Hongjoong feel like he’s being continuously burned all throughout his insides by flames he can’t put out, so he’s not sure what would happen if he did something as dangerous as _touch_. 

“Why would you ask me a question like that?”

“I thought it would…” Seonghwa trails off, before gathering the courage to start again. “...That the familiarity of the activity might brighten your mood.” 

It’s Mars’s face, for sure, extending an invitation characteristic of Mars’s personality. The reasoning behind that invitation, however, is mechanical, just a computer using algorithms to figure out what will make Hongjoong the happiest superficially, and that immediately drains the remainder of what little faith Hongjoong has in Seonghwa. 

Hongjoong closes his eyes, knowing he’s on the verge of shutting down. It’s hard enough to have Seonghwa walking around the house when every sight of him is yet another sprinkle of salt on merely one of Hongjoong’s many open wounds, and this...Seonghwa trying to fulfill his role as a replacement, cuts particularly deep. 

Hongjoong exhales shakily before he asks, “Why are you in my room?” 

“Sorry,” Seonghwa says, looking down at his lap. “Based on the data I was given about you, you’ve been getting up later than you used to. Your sleeping patterns are changing, so I was... concerned.” 

“Data on my sleeping patterns?” Hongjoong raises his eyebrows. As much as he wants to kill Jongho for being tactless enough to create a machine-version of Mars, he has to acknowledge his younger brother was diligent. “Am I some experiment to you?” 

“No,” Seonghwa says. “It’s because... I care about you.” 

“You’re wrong,” Hongjoong says, despair gathering hot and heavy at his fingertips as he curls his hands into fists. “You’ve been programmed to care about me. They’ve shoved memories and emotions belonging to someone else down your throat so that you can pretend to understand what it means to feel things when it’s so much easier not to.” 

“It’s not pretending,” Seonghwa argues. He sounds... like he’s going to cry, and for some reason, Hongjoong fully expects to see wetness at the corners of Seonghwa’s eyes despite knowing Seonghwa is incapable of producing tears. “You may think that I don’t feel anything, Hongjoong, but our memories together are always on replay, and all I think about whenever you say vicious things out of spite is that you don’t look at me the way you used to.” 

“The way I used to?” Hongjoong repeats, gaze going blank. He feels hollow inside his chest, and even if he already avoids looking at Seonghwa most of the time, he _really_ can’t look at him now. “You don’t know me. You weren’t here when any of the good or bad or dumb shit happened to me. You weren’t in my life at _all_ until a month ago, so we’re acquaintances at best.” 

“I do know you,” Seonghwa insists. “It’s not my fault I was given Mars’s memories, which are raw and painful and very _real_ , Hongjoong, and all I can do with these emotions is accept them as mine. That I’m experiencing them so that I can give you the love you deserve, but you keep saying it’s just pretend and that hurts me even more.” 

“What is it, then, if not pretending?” Hongjoong asks. “Why do you bother learning the intricacies of human emotion when your natural lack of it is the most powerful thing about you?” 

Seonghwa purses his lips to think, pausing for a beat before he eventually answers, “The warmth.” 

“What?” Hongjoong chuckles. “Warmth?” 

Seonghwa nods. “I don’t know if it’s the same type of warmth you experience, but it’s the feeling I get when I see you being kind to a stray, dirty kitten by feeding it fish you’ve picked all the bones out of. When you laugh at a joke that’s not funny no matter how many times I replay the audio in my head, and your eyes curl into these little crescents. When you check to see that none of my charging or interior cables are twisted even though you hardly ever smile at me.”

Hongjoong bites at his lower lip hard enough to cause pain, in order to distract himself from what Seonghwa has just said. 

“What does that feel like?” he asks. It’s a question laced with more sarcasm than sincerity, but it’s fine, because Seonghwa hasn’t mastered the various nuances of human humor and Hongjoong is curious to know the answer regardless. “Do your wires feel fuzzy, or overheat? Does the code Jongho’s written for you to function properly skip lines and make you glitch?” 

“It makes me feel like I’m burning from the inside out,” Seonghwa replies. “Like flames are licking at my fingers but I can’t put them out no matter how hard I try.” 

His eyelashes flutter, the gesture every bit as uncanny as it is _real,_ and Hongjoong’s eyes widen at the fact that Seonghwa has described the exact same sensation Hongjoong is forced to live through every time he sees Seonghwa doing anything that remotely resembles what Mars used to do. 

If Hongjoong were less stubborn, he would be kind to Seonghwa. After all, Seonghwa didn’t actively choose to become the vessel through which Mars’s memories live on, but Hongjoong didn’t choose this either, and despite all that he could gain from having a nearly flawless android devoted to loving only him, all Hongjoong sees in Seonghwa is everything he’s lost. 

  
  



End file.
